


memories they make

by anniebibananie



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon, F/M, Prompt Fill, Shared Trauma, post show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 16:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniebibananie/pseuds/anniebibananie
Summary: "Sometimes, Sansa can’t shake the feeling that loving Theon is something like loving a ghost."





	memories they make

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fill from tumblr: theon and sansa + ghosts, the aftermath of everything

Sometimes, Sansa can’t shake the feeling that loving Theon is something like loving a ghost. She’s certain it must feel the same in return, and maybe that’s why it works for them. Not that they’ve said it aloud, hell,  _done_ anything about it. 

But Theon has stayed too long. She hasn’t asked him to—too afraid to hear no, too afraid of the vulnerability—for fear he would slip between her fingers, just another ghost among them. Jon gone from the Great War. Bran from losing his mind in Drogon. 

Now it is just him and her as the only Starks left. Arya had become a Baratheon not long after the long night, Gendry legitimized by Daenerys, and while Sansa had never much anticipated Arya being capable of the task of running a place and people, her and Gendry have figured it out in the Stormlands well enough. 

It is lonely, though, her and Theon and the ghosts that live around them. 

“Would you like to take supper in your chambers tonight?” he asks, but his eyes don’t quite reach hers. They’re looking over her shoulder as if he sees something else. Robb perhaps, standing slightly taller and broader than her. 

“Yes, I think I could use a bit of silence.” 

He nods, turning away to make plans though it is not his duty. His duty lies far away in the Iron Islands where Yara waits for her hand to finally return. 

Sansa should bring it up, she thinks. That way she won’t have to be blindsided when the time comes. She will miss him unbearably, those dirty curls and his angled jaw. The way he sometimes reaches out and ghosts his fingers over her wrist simply to let her know he is there—heart beating, breathing—unlike all their fallen family. 

If he leaves, she will have no one else to remember she was whole once. No one will remember the way she could smile full, unaware that terrors were yet to come. 

“Would you like the company?” he asks as if Sansa doesn’t invite him to eat with her most nights. 

“I’d like that.” She nods, sends a half-smile. Most of her feels in halves these days. 

He reaches out familiarly as he passes for his seat, and Sansa catches her breath. If he hears, he pretends he doesn’t. She is touch-starved these days, and yet Theon is the only one she would dare let touch her. 

“Have you heard the news of Arya?” she asks. A maid brings them dishes, and she reaches out for a sip of her wine. “She may well be with child.” 

“They certainly did not waste time, did they?” he says, the curve of a smile playing at his lips. 

It could be Jon’s or her father’s. They all learned that twisted curve from him, the serious, grim grin. Before Theon was unmade, he never much smiled like that, but now she catches it on him more. 

“I’m glad she is happy.” Arya does seem happy in her letters, as short and ill-written as they are. 

It strikes her as funny that Arya found marital bliss before her. Catelyn would be so proud, she can’t help but think. 

“They’ll be the wildest beasts,” Theon says, and this time he smiles and laughs like Theon, and it brings out  _Sansa._

They play at ghosts like this, too. The ghosts of who they once were and attempt to be again. Some days, Sansa feels as if she can see versions of herself scattered in front of her like half-filled visions. Traitor. Bastard. Wardeness. She wonders if Theon feels it, too. Traitor. Nothing. Brother. Maybe that is why they find comfort in one another, because they manage to find each other in every version, between the empty titles even. 

“Sansa,” he begins, his voice already tightening, “I received a scroll from Yara today.” 

She closes her eyes, letting the words soak in. She isn’t sure what she thinks closing her eyes will prevent her from seeing, but she is tired. Maybe, she can stop time. Maybe when she opens them again she will return to before—all the ghosts made back to flesh and blood—and she can actually make this wretched world a sliver more fair, more right by her hands. 

When she opens her eyes, Theon is in front of her. She hadn’t heard him move, and yet he is crouched before her. He looks seconds from reaching out, but his arms stay by his sides. She can’t read the look in his eyes. 

“She is wondering when you will return home?” she asks, words soft. 

He nods, direct. One of her favorite things about him these days is he doesn’t lie to her. There is nothing but honesty, despite the sometimes brutal nature of it. 

“When will you go?” 

A log in the fire crackles, and they both jump at the sound. Not all the ghosts that haunt them are pleasant, and for a second her mind flashes to the sinister smirk of Ramsay Bolton. 

“Do you wish me to go, my lady?” His eyes are earnest, his face open. 

She doesn’t know how to tell him that she would be happy for him to stay forever. In fact, she is not sure she knows how to survive Winterfell without him. The ghosts may very well drive her mad, drown her, pull her from reality. 

He may be like loving a ghost, but it is only when he reaches to touch her that she remembers how to be alive. 

More than her need for him, though, she wants. Winterfell is  _better_ with him around. They are not broken, but they are not whole. It feels natural, the way they are building back to something sturdier. 

She doesn’t answer what he asks. “Your sister must miss your council.” 

He tilts his head, chews on his bottom lip. He looks as if he is about to tease her. She nearly wishes he would to diffuse the palpable tension. 

“I don’t want to leave you.” 

She breathes in deeply, pushing up out of the chair and walking toward the window. It grows warmer every day. Some days, the ladies call her crazy, but she knows she can feel it in the air. After a moment longer, she turns around to see him standing again a few feet out. 

“How can I possibly ask you to stay?” Her words are not sharp, but they do feel hot. She isn’t sure why it made her so suddenly angry. “What life can I offer you? Stuck in a place not your home, surrounded by our trauma. A woman made of ice.” 

Theon takes a step forward. “You  _are_  ice. The ice of House Stark and the flowing river of House Tully. A strong Wardeness of the North, and if I had anything to offer you i would ask for your hand.”

The words come in a rush, and Sansa is not sure who is more surprised by them between her and him. 

So, he does love her, then? Or at least feels some sense of obligation? He is heated, his chest heaving, and Sansa can imagine him the way he must have looked on the beach when he fought to go get his sister. The salt in his veins, the power in his voice, seems easy to imagine. 

“But you will not?” she asks. 

He looks sure as he speaks, and Sansa is pulled in. She takes cautious steps, almost as if she can’t feel herself moving forward at all. 

“I can’t offer you a good name.”

“I have one of my own.”

He wasn’t expecting that, but he continues on anyways. “I cannot offer you a good reputation.”

“I am the Northern bitch,” she replies, only two steps away now. She can see the weary lines of his face. “A twice married one.” 

“I cannot give you heirs,” he whispers as if it is the final blow. 

Sansa takes the last step, and she reaches out with a delicate hand. They are both wild animals, seconds from scaring away, but when her frosty fingers finally touch the skin of his cheek it feels close to easy. As if they should have done this more, bridged this gap, finally given in. 

“Then I am glad Arya and Gendry have gotten such a head start.” 

Sansa wants to give all of herself into this, all her fractured selves, but she needs to be sure. She can’t take away someone’s choice, can’t force them the way her hand was so constantly forced. 

“If you wish to be Yara’s hand, then go Theon, and I wish you the best of luck and happiness. If you wish to stay, though, then stay and marry me.” 

Under her palm, she can feel his breath halt. His eyes are locked on her own, deadly serious. “You could make a much better alliance than a disgraced Greyjoy.” 

Sansa brings the other hand up so she is cupping his full face in her hands, and she can tell he isn’t sure what to do with the softness of the gesture. 

“I’m not sure how many more ways I can say I do not care, but I’ll try one more.” Her lips curl up in the way that make the Northern lords dub her the wolf of Winterfell, but she knows the gesture is all her mother. It was the way she would smile at her father over a slice of bread in the morning, teasing him lightly. “I have married without choice, for alliance, before. I would like to marry for love at least once.” 

Theon’s lips curve up at the edges. It does not remind Sansa of anyone but Theon—him, here, in this moment. “I love you. How could I not? The woman who put me back together again.” 

He dips forward and kisses her, finally, and Sansa brings them close. She is not scared—he has seen the all of her. When he kisses her, and her him, she cannot feel a single ghost in the room. 

It is just her and him and the memories they make. The beautiful, difficult future. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: [anniebibananie](http://anniebibananie.tumblr.com/)


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